Falanx Group Ltd (LON:FLX) Chief Executive Officer Stuart Bladen and Executive Director Jay Abbott caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss their three recent announcements; Operational Update, Change of Adviser and New Board appointment
Q1: Now Falanx put out no less than three announcements today, could you just summarise for the DirectorsTalk audience what the headlines were?
A1: Our first announcement was an operational update, point one, we’ve opened up a new SOC (Security Operations Centre) in Birmingham, that’s now live and fully operational. It’s tripled our capacity and reduced our costs so what’s not to like. Point number two, we’ve made great strides in building out our leadership team, we’ve hired a Head of Sales and Marketing, a Head of Penetration Testing, a Head of SOC and Operations and now have an enlarged operational and services team and that really positions us well for continued growth next year. Point three, we also announced some new contracts win and extensions, totally just under 400k. Put that all together and we are on track for our corporate plan and if that sounds dull, it isn’t, we had a really aggressive plan with significant growth in the second half and we are well positioned with just under a quarter to go. So, that was the first announcement.
The second announcement was for a new adviser, SPARK Advisory Partners. We went with them because they’re a mid-market specialist, they have a key focus on growth and that’s exactly what we need right now.
The third announcement, of course, was an internal promotion with Jay Abbott, our Cyber Defence MD, being promoted to the Falanx Group board.
Q2: It’s great that you’re promoting from within, why did you ask Jay to join the Board?
A2: Because he’d earned it of course. Jay joined Falanx only 9 months ago, when we acquired ASC and since then he’s had an enormous impact on the business. He’s re-engineered most of our processes, he’s expanded our capability, he’s reduced costs and set up our new facilities and at the same time as doing all of that he’s actually been out winning new business and delivering to some really major clients. So, Jay’s role now and next year is crucial so we just had to put him on the Board, it was well-deserved recognition.
Q3: We actually have Jay on the line. First off Jay, can you tell me a bit more about your new set up in Birmingham, why is it important?
A3: The set-up Falanx Group used to have in Reading was relatively limited in size and geography and presented some issues around recruitment as well. If you’re recruiting in and around the London region it can be quite difficult on a premise that a lot of the talent is actually getting on a train for a few thousand pounds a year more and going to central London. So, we were presented, when I first joined the organisation, with some issues around access to talent and growth so I sort of looked around the country a little bit into potential areas where there is both a good university feed from multiple different universities and also a reasonable cost of premise and stakes in growth and expansion and all these usual factors that you would look at.
The usual suspects, Manchester, Leeds are fairly well subscribed, a lot of existing cyber companies there so Birmingham kind of popped up as an area of strategic interest. It’s obviously very well connected, centrally located for easy access to clients north, south, east and west and a lot of very good universities on its doorstep and not too far away and provided a very rich talent pool for us as well as a very interesting location. We’re actually based in The Custard Factory which is a regeneration area based from the old custard factory, I think Bird’s custard factory, and this is a real growth area for Birmingham, lots of interesting technology and media companies in and around where we are so it was a very good place to build a state of the art technical facility to house the SOC operations and provide us with a base to go forward and acquire talent.
Q4: Now Jay, is the move to Birmingham why you’ve been hiring or is it down to growth? Are these new roles or replacement roles?
A4: It’s a mixture of both, we have grown the company significantly, both across the lines of service so areas in which we can service clients’ needs and therefore the talent required to service that as well as extending the current capability that existed prior to when I joined around the Security Operations Centre. So, much like I’ve been promoted within, I’ve promoted my Head of SOC Operations from within who was my technical lead when I got here around the Security Operations Centre and we have been acquiring new talent across all of the lines of service that we have from penetration testing through the consulting and instant response as well as the Security Operations Centre. So, we’ve got, what I like to consider now, quite a good talent pool, we’ve got quite a waiting list of interns that want to come and join the organisation because they like the sort of interesting things we’re doing and there’s a good pool of talent there that’s ready to come in as we scale up.
Q5: How do you see Falanx Group’s cyber defence developing over the next year?
A5: It’s pretty much, from my perspective, more of the same, just grow, grow, grow, that’s my plan, that’s my focus. We’re doing as much as we can, we’re looking to innovate and to try and reframe clients’ perspective of the issues so we can maximise the benefit to them. I guess one of the key things that I think makes us different is the fact that we’re not just selling services or selling products or anything like that, we actually create genuine partnerships with our clients, I look across our current client landscape and I know most of my clients by their first name and I spend a lot of time with them, we solve the problems together. We bring a level of expertise they don’t have in-house and they understand their business far better than I could ever so that kind of strength really really does build these really strong partnerships with clients so it can only get better.
Q6: Stuart, if I could just finish up by asking what were the key messages for today?
A6: Number one, we’re on track for the year and that means exciting growth and new clients arriving, number two, we’ve invested in great facilities in Birmingham that expand our capacity and reduce our costs and number 3, we’re investing in people and growth, we have Jay as a new Board member and a new strong leadership team to help us lead continued growth next year.
